Fun Facts Friday: Elizabeth Jolley

Elizabeth Jolley (4 June, 1923 – 13 February, 2007) was an Australian writer, novelist, and short story teller.

Books by Elizabeth Jolley*

Fun Facts about Elizabeth Jolley:

1. Elizabeth Jolley, born as Monica Elizabeth Knight, was born in Birmingham, England.
2. She was educated privately until age 11, when she was sent to a Quaker boarding school around Banbury in Oxford called Sibford School.
3. Ms. Jolley’s first book was published when she was 53 years old. Her writing career continued well into her 70s.
4. Training as an orthopedic nurse the young woman fell in love with one of her patients – Leonard Jolley. Young Ms. Knight got pregnant by her patient, and she… moved in with him and his wife… who was also pregnant.
5. In 1959 Elizabeth and Leonard moved to Australia and got married. They couple had three children, and lived in a Perth suburb called Claremont.
6. Along with a mired of jobs, Mrs. Jolley wrote short stories, plays, and novels. She was taught writing at the Western Australian Institute of Technology, as well as Curtin University.
7. Mrs. Jolley wrote for a long time before being published, one year she had 39 rejections.
8. In 1998 Mrs. Jolley was named professor of Creative Writing at Curtin University.
9. The author won many awards included The Age Book of the Year for Mr. Scobie’s Riddle and the Christina Stead Prize for fiction for Milk and Honey.
10. Literary critic Peter Craven said that “She was a master of black comedy and she went on to write a wholly different form of autobiographical fiction that was lucid, luminous and calm”

Books by Elizabeth Jolley*

Zohar — Man of la Book
*Ama­zon links point to an affil­i­ate account